Take a Look at the Timeline of Indian Tower Business

In 2007-08, when Indian telecom operators was about to see a massive growth in the sector, few companies saw the potential of Tower Business to be the backbone of new mobile service providers. Most of the present tower and infra companies were founded during that time.

Cut to 2012-2016, many new operators already left with the entry of Jio with free services and later-on very competitive tariff plans pushed the operators to consolidations. With fewer operators tower biz does not herald good profits for independent infra providers – as a result, the consolidation took place one by one in this sector too.

Timeline of India’s tower biz:

Reliance India Mobile was the first operator in the country who understood the importance of creating a separate infrastructure company – in 2001 Reliance Telecom Infrastructure Limited was founded to take care the towers, OFC and related assets of the company.

Aster Infrastructure was founded in 2002.

Global Group entered into tower biz with GTL Infra in 2004.

In 2005 Independent Mobile Infrastructure (IMIL) was founded. (later shut down in 2009-10)

Delhi headquartered American Tower Corporation India started operations in India in 2007 starting from Bihar and Orissa.

In 2007 Transcend Infrastructure was founded in Kolkata.

In July 2007 Bharti Airtel demerge their tower business as Bharti Infratel.

In November 2007 Bharti Infratel (42%), Vodafone India (42%) and Idea Cellular (16%) founded Indus Towers – the largest tower company in the world with more than 1.2 lakh towers.

In 2008 Quippo bought of Spice Telecom’s towers.

Reliance Telecom Infrastructure Limited was rebranded as Reliance Infratel in 2008. (in 2005 Reliance empire was divided between two brothers and since then Reliance’s telecom business was headed by Anil Ambani and rebranded as Reliance Communication or RCOM).

In 2009 Vodafone created a new company Ortus Infratel Holdings to invest in Indus Towers.

The another tower company, American Tower Corp is in the news, for its recent acquisition of a total of 20,000 towers from Vodafone and Idea Cellular. Why ATC goes in a buying spree?

ATC came to the country in 2007, and it grew by buying off several companies. However, its biggest acquisition was Viom Networks which has good tenancy ratio but mostly from Tata Tele and Telenor. Airtel has bought of both Tata and Telenor – and as Airtel has two tower connections via Indus and own subsidiary Bharti Infratel, there is very less possibility that Airtel would maintain the relation with Viom/ATC.

With a handful of operators, ATC needs to find a new growth factor – which was Vodafone and Idea’s own tower assets (which were not part of Indus towers). Vodafone and Idea to be merged soon and to keep the business streamlined they needed to sell off own towers. And here ATC came – it’s a win-win situation for all three companies – ATC gets a high-value tenant, and the merged entity doesn’t have to think for towers’ maintenance.

Lastly, we have to talk about Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel. As Vodafone and Idea merge, they might eventually sell off their stakes in Indus towers; Bharti may be in the controlling stake of Indus, and they might dismantle Bharti Infratel and put all towers with Indus. And of course, Bharti will bring some overseas fund to their unified tower business.

Guys, what do you think about India’s tower and passive telecom infrastructure providers? Share your views in the comments below.

Reported By

Must Read

As more and more technology companies lock horns in court rooms across the world, the battlefield for telecom players globally seems to have moved beyond the market place. In recent past, we have seen a phenomenal rise in litigations involving

Mobile web browser firm Bitstream Inc. today announced that its BOLT browser recorded One Billion web page having launched for the mobile phones in February last year. Anna Magliocco-Chagnon, CEO of Bitstream said "In July of last year Bitstream announced

Infinix, the Transsion Holdings smartphone brand recently launched the selfie-centric Infinix Hot S3 smartphone in the Indian market at Rs 8,999. With the Hot S3 smartphone, the company is entering the territory of Xiaomi's Redmi Y1 (first impressions), which by

The internet is abuzz with rumours that BSNL (other telcos too) is planning to introduce 13 digit numbers, as enrolment of new users continues to rise. The report comes on heels of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited giving instructions to network

Leave a Reply

12 Comments on "Take a Look at the Timeline of Indian Tower Business"

Sort by:
newest |
oldest

Aakash Hinduja

December 11, 2017 12:26 am 12:26 AM

Reliance RCom 2G had shutdown pan india on 1st december 2017. Rcom 3G and 4G will continue. I have recharged with Rcom 3G Rs 89 pack which gives 28GB at 3G speed for 28 days, i.e 1GB per day at 3G speed at 6 to 8mbps in Rcom Mumbai 3G GSM.

ReplyHide Replies ∧

Kunal

December 10, 2017 4:59 pm 4:59 PM

Jio comissioned a new site in our village ( moje eiklere , taluka umargoan , district valsad.) in rural south gujarat on 7/12/17. But jio providing only 800 ( band 5 )& 2300( band 40) only , no band 3 (1800) on this tower. With this , jio becomes the second network to be available in the village & surrounding area after voda. Voda started network last year september with 2g only , then added 3g in january this year & finally 4g in august . At present range is good enough of jio band 5 , which is available… Read more »

ReplyHide Replies ∧

swapnil

December 9, 2017 2:54 pm 2:54 PM

Apart from jio which of the telecom provider has reliable network particularly in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad circle and in Pan Gujarat in general. Any suggestion??